Lightning and Flame

by V. S. Holmes

  Arik laughed, tucking the book inside his shirt before rising. “I doubt the Kit would let you starve.”

  Φ

  Bren had gambled on having time to plan, to organize the Kit. He had yet to even formulate what he was actually doing. The letter sitting on his desk when he returned from the city crushed those hopes for more time. The parchment probably cost more than the clothes he wore. If the formal hand of a scribe was not enough, the bright ribbons and seals told him it was from the queen and it was no missive. The address stilled his breath.

  Addressing His Highness Crown Prince Brentemir, Heir Apparent of Mirik

  Bren groaned. Every carefully thought-over piece of his plan fell through with an almost audible clatter.

  We wish to express congratulations of Ceir Athrolan and her cities on the reclamation of the harbor capitol of Mirik. Athrolan received word that the city has indeed been abandoned by Lord King Azirik of Mirik and his Gods’ Army, and offers her own Naval Commander and a ship of her navy to continue its aide to raise Mirik’s capital to its former strength.

  Ceir Athrolan and her cities hope that as acting king of Mirik, you will accept our extended hand of alliance against King Azirik and his Berrin allies in this war for Dhoah’ Lyne’alea and her people. We look forward to your response within a fortnight.

  Respectfully and in peace,

  Her Majesty Tzatia, Queen of Athrolan, on behalf of Athrolan and her people

  If Bren was unsure of the calculating intelligence behind the queen’s benevolent smile before, now he was certain. “Damn, I’m a soldier not a king!” He tossed the letter into his drawer beside the ring and drew a clean sheet of parchment over.

  Oland,

  Her Majesty called me out. She addressed me as Heir Apparent and all sorts of things and requested an alliance. I hoped we would have more time. Might I meet with you, and all the Kit and our allies? Your earliest convenience would be best.

  He sealed it and sent the letter off with a squire. His officer’s log lay on the desk. He had not written since leaving Azirik’s army. Now he opened it and stared at the blank page before him. Rauld says that the best way to govern a people is to be that people. Azirik ruined Mirik with her own crown, and wounded the earth with another. Perhaps it is time we ruled without one. He dipped his pen and began to write.

  Φ

  The 24th Day of Lineme, 1252

  The City of Ceir Athrolan

  Arman decided he and Wes should have taken up armor smithing years ago. The sprawling buildings of the royal armory were bustling, yet well kept, giving the illusion of chaos without the actual danger. He had handed over his designs for his armor, albeit with Eras’s changes. Now he stared at the rough sketch and estimated price. He could buy his own forge with that sum. Perhaps two. He could retire and not work another day.

  The money Wes had given him before they left Vielrona still weighed heavily in his purse, but it was nothing compared to the price of armor. He had not needed money in months and it was a strange feeling to worry about it again. He, Alea and Bren rested in a strange place of indecision. They did not need money, but nor did they work for a wage. Their expenses were covered by Athrolan, but Arman knew it was not an indefinite arrangement. Anxiety raced through Arman’s veins. The smoke and metal scent of the forge was a heady concoction. He needed to be outside. He needed air. Armor would have to wait.

  He ducked through the smaller south gate between the palace and the barracks and strode down the road. It led up through the wooded hills before forking to the west and south. The air was cool and within a few minutes the sounds of the city had faded. He walked until the trees swallowed him and all but the highest towers disappeared. The forest was full of animal noises and the wind, but nothing menacing. It had been a long time since he had been able to consider the woods safe.

  He shook away the thoughts and broke into a lope. A mountain stream gurgled nearby, and he ran upstream, boots tapping as he jumped from rock to rock. His breath was barely gasping. He pushed himself harder, falling into his power, willing his skin and muscle to disappear into smoke. The resistance of air and gravity fell away as his body dissolved. His eyes fluttered open, mind still gripping his power. His limbs were twisting white smoke, nothing more substantial than dust motes in the sunlight lancing through the trees. Only his torso remained, and even that seemed closer to a ghost than a man.

  Arman crowed at the success, and his voice was a keening shriek, too guttural to be a bird’s, too grating to be human. “What do you think of this?” He had taken to conversing with the golden eyes that floated in the back of his mind. It warped his thought patterns enough to develop new ideas. Sometimes, even, he thought they answered him.

  Smoke is only an echo of flame. Where is the fire?

  Arman scowled. “I am no Rakos, burning the air with a single thought. I am just an echo of something mighty.” He pulled up more power, coating himself with it and urged his legs faster. Except, it was not his legs that propelled him now, but sheer will. His body faded, skin and muscle writhing away to expose transparent organs, insubstantial bones. “If someone struck me with a sword, would it pass through me, leaving me unharmed?”

  Fire is stronger than steel. Fire molds the earth as it wishes.

  He topped the hill, a broad rocky outcrop with sparse tree cover. He willed his body to move faster, towards the cliff on the hill’s southern face. With a final push, he dove over the edge. Smoke is lighter than most air, floating on the currents like an equal. Arman did not fall. He drifted, supported by the sun-warmed air that rose from the rock. His grin blossomed into a delighted laugh. The eyes seared through his thoughts, a thousand times more insistent. A wicked scar scored one, turning the edges of the iris a sickly white.

  When will you stop playing and come find us?

  Who are you? Arman pushed away, peering at the figure. It was a Rakos, all yellow hair and golden skin. Where are you?

  I’m Eana. I thought I was the last. The grin was wicked and not playful in the least. You’d find us if you bothered to look. The familiar litany of a single word began. Fear. Fear. The man lunged and Arman gasped, dragging himself out of the tangle of someone else’s thoughts. The distraction broke his hold and his body became abruptly solid. With a startled shout nothing like the war cry from a moment ago, he crashed to the ground.

  He groaned, rolling over onto his hands and knees. His body was bruised, but nothing felt broken. His skin itched uncontrollably, as it often did after he used his power, but nothing could dampen his excitement. Even his pride was too astounded to be wounded. The Rakos ruled the skies, and now he knew how.

  Φ

  The 29th Day of Lineme, 1252

  “Deal you in?” Sousa’s invitation arched across the bar’s common room upon Arman’s arrival.

  Arman snorted. “I’m rubbish at cards, I think we’ve discovered.” He jerked his head toward the bar. “I still owe you.” He ordered a round of whatever his friends had already begun to drink and meandered back to their table. Kal shimmied over on the bench to make room as Arman plopped down beside him.

  Arman crossed his boots on the table and leaned back with a sigh. His spirits were high and his heart still raced from his earlier discovery.

  “Arman, you got dirt and stone all over your boots.” Sousa complained, making a shooing motion at the offending attire. “What did you do, wrestle a bear? Witt said you were out in the woods today.”

  Arman grinned. “I was practicing, testing some things I read about the Rakos.” He rarely spoke about the less-than-human side of his blood, and hated the way it made his friends eye him sideways. Still, his mood was too good to be spoiled by a wary look.

  Sousa’s expression faltered and the grin he hastily pulled onto his face looked forced. The moment was broken by the delivery of their drinks. Arman gulped down most of his first mug, his mind scrambling for a change in subject.

  Before Arman could pick a new topic, Kal glanced over with tempered curiosity.
“Did you always know what you were?”

  “No, I learned it several weeks after meeting milady.” He shrugged. “I’ll tell you true, though, it explained some things.”

  Sousa grinned, his change in mood indicating he had imbibed a fair amount already. “Why you had fangs, like?”

  Arman whacked the man on the shoulder. “Idiot, I didn’t have those my whole childhood.”

  “So you bound yourself to this all-powerful creature without knowing what you were? Not knowing if you stood a chance in the war?”

  Arman stared into the swirling of his drink, absently telling himself that the drink was in fact swirling, not just his head. “I knew my blood when I bound myself to her. I didn’t understand all the consequences though. If you saw her like I see her you’d not question it though.”

  “I think the same about my woman.” Kal’s eyes were distant and suddenly sage-like. “So the Rakos blood goes back in your family?”

  Arman’s response was interrupted by a bitter voice.

  “Nah, his Ma bedded one damned ugly stranger when his Pa looked the other way. It’s how the thieves of his city are—rut with anyone who looks twice.”

  Arman’s gaze narrowed on the broad shape of Hasian standing over them. He straightened himself on the bench and extracted his arm from Sousa’s grip before rising.

  “Going to shoo me off again? Words do not scare me, little man. Yer just a corpse forgot he was dead.” The smell of stale ale rolled off Hasian ‘s tongue on the tail of his words.

  A month ago Arman would have noted it and backed down from a foolish fight. A month ago he would have laughed the stupidity away. Instead, his blood roiled through his veins. Heat raced through his body, rising faster than ever. His retort bubbled into a growl.

  “Forget it, Arman. It’s like talking to a wall.” Kal tugged at Arman’s arm. “We’ll just leave.”

  “You can’t fight when your lady’s away? What’s she doing, anyways? Bedding her way across the country? How else would she get any of us to fight for her? Narier said she’s not much in the way of looks, but she’s a warm place to stick it.”

  Sousa groaned, hiding his head in his hands. Heat flamed across Arman’s face, turning his eyes yellow. He dropped his shoulder and tackled the larger soldier with a roar. A table crashed against the wall, ale slicking the floor. The two men grappled, no one willing to attempt to pull them apart. Arman’s head came up for a moment, blood staining his face.

  “Damn, he’ll kill him!” Sousa shouted, finally reaching for his friend.

  Kal shook his head and held Sousa back. “He’ll kill you, too.”

  Arman heard nothing but the pounding of blood in his ears and the screaming of fire in his veins. His vision blurred, everything tinged gold. His hands glowed like white beacons to his eyes. The yield of flesh and bone under his fists was satisfying, and the resulting blood warm between his burning fingers. It tasted salty and sweet. Abruptly he no longer felt any blows. The roar of a landslide in his mind faded as the common room fell silent. He drew back, breath coming in heaving gasps. Blinking rapidly, he cleared his vision.

  Hasian lay unconscious at his feet, bruises already coloring his face. A ragged wound marred his shoulder, bone stark against the dark blood and ale staining the floor. Arman shook the remaining haze from his eyes and turned to find Sousa and Kal. Their expressions were horrified. Sousa swallowed hard before pointing to the door.

  Arman shouldered his way through the silent bar. No one tried to stop him. His friends followed him out. Once they were all in the street and the door shut behind them, he turned. “Why didn’t you pull us apart?”

  “You looked like a mad man, Arman.”

  Arman ordered his thoughts, each one scorching his mind. Adrenaline and rage were a seething ocean threatening to drown him. “Did I draw a knife? Take his? There was a wound on his shoulder.”

  Kal pointedly wiped his mouth, obviously meaning for Arman to do the same.

  Arman reached up to feel his face. It was covered in blood and pieces of flesh. It was not his own. “Toar!” He turned his back, spitting repeatedly into the gutter. “Damned disgusting!”

  Sousa looked down, making no argument. “Do you want us to walk you back? Hasian has few friends, but after that, people will come looking.”

  Arman backed away. “Don’t think I can handle myself? Dead man in there says otherwise.” His sentences were fragmented, stumbling over the disgust and rage thickening his throat. He would regret the angry dismissal, and the bloody fight, but that would be later. Now his skin itched and company was the last thing he wanted. He hunched his shoulders and strode down a darkened alley. He took a meandering route back to the palace, keeping to deserted streets. Heat radiated from his body, burning the blood from his skin with a sickly sweet smell. He was sane enough to be concerned, sane enough to be terrified. The lantern light in the general’s window caught his eye as he approached the palace. He recalled her offer: Should you want any more advice or clarity, I am here.

  A pregnant pause followed his loud knocking, then a chair scraped along the floor. Eras jerked the door open and peered into the hall. Her gaze inched over the blood-drenched man, but her expression remained unreadable. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. May I come in?”

  She stepped aside and pointed to a chair in front of her desk. She disappeared into the room beyond, returning with a wash basin and towel. “It’s cold, but I suspect you won’t mind.”

  Neither spoke while Arman cleaned the worst of the blood from his face and hands. He sat back when he had finished.

  “That’s not yours, is it?” Her tone was hard enough for the words to not actually be asking.

  “I attacked a man tonight. He was drunk. So was I, until the fight sobered me.”

  She sat on the edge of the desk before him, arms crossed. “Why?”

  “He slandered my mother and milady.”

  “Then I suspect he deserved it. You’ve been in brawls before, I assume. But you are not here because you fought your first fight. You were at Shadow, so you’re not here because you killed your first man.” She paused, her eyes narrowing. “Did you kill him?”

  “Yes. I don’t know. He wasn’t moving.” He looked down at his hands. They should have been shaking. “I beat him senseless, tore into him with my hands and teeth.”

  “Your vision blurred. You neither heard your comrades telling you to lay off, nor felt the blows inflicted upon you.”

  He was too tired to be embarrassed by the relief on his face. “This is normal?”

  “It happens to soldiers to a lesser degree. It’s a form of battle shock. What happened to you, though, is not normal. Not for a human man. Not for someone with a little bit of different blood in their veins, like me.” She tilted her head at him, as if examining a curiosity. “You’re not just a Rakos, are you?”

  Arman ran a hand through his hair, wincing as it caught in snarls of matted blood. “I’ve read about the Rakos, general. There is mention of a change, something that makes regular guards more powerful, able to create the monsters I showed you. I am nothing like either. I’m a shadow of what the Rakos used to be.” His elation at turning himself to floating smoke was gone, erased by dread and shame. “That book you gave me, it sounds like it was penned by An’thoriend. I was raised on his tales, and we met him twice. If he wrote this, he could have seen what I was. That proves that I’m nothing but a freak.”

  Eras shrugged. “An’thor is a dear friend, but not always present.” She fixed Arman with her level stare. “There are some Rakos that were older, stronger, and they had a name. They were called Earth Shakers.”

  “Those are the monsters, the things the Rakos created.”

  Eras’s expression softened. “No, Arman, they didn’t create them. They became them.”

  Arman stared out the window thoughtfully. “General, could the Earth Shakers fly?”

  Her brows twitched upward. “Why, can you?” When he did not answer
, she sighed. “Lady Lyne’alea is unlike anything this world has seen. I wouldn’t be surprised if she woke far more than the Rakos in your blood.” She offered him a faint, sad smile. “One more thing for you to study.”

  Arman barked a laugh, the sound foreign in a throat raw from snarling. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you enjoyed tormenting me.”

  “Someone has to. You need guidance, Arman, and tonight only proves that. Everyone is too worried of what Lyne’alea’s power would do if unchecked. I worry just as much about yours.”

  “Well, with a name like Earth Shaker, it’s a small wonder.” He looked down at his boots. “If I killed him, what will happen? There were enough people in that bar to know it was me. There’s no running.”

  “I think given the circumstances, it will be all right, but be ready. I’ll ask around and let you know in the morning.”

  He nodded and finished his drink. After a moment he looked up. “Do you think I’ll ever go back to being simply Arman?”

  “I can’t say, but I’d imagine it would be difficult.” She poured him a glass of water from a pitcher. “The road back home is often long and harder than we remember. Why do you ask?”

  “After this, how would I go back to being a smith? An innkeeper’s son? To being Veredy’s husband? I’m not sure I want to, and that terrifies me.”

  Eras coughed on her own drink. “You were married? I must have seriously misread your relationship with Lady Lyne’alea.”

  “Not exactly. I was ready to ask my girl to wed. I was mid-speech when Alea discovered she was the Dhoah’ Laen and started screaming in my mind. Awkward, that. I think Veredy misread things, same as you.”

  Eras leaned back. “Would I be prying to ask if things have changed?”

  Arman laughed. “Perhaps, but I know as little as you. I thought we were friends for a long time. Now I’m not sure. Milady is complicated on the best of days.” He finished his drink and rose. “Thank you, for talking.”

  Eras did not look up and her voice was soft. “If you care for my advice, I’ll say that war changes people in unexpected ways. Times like these, even the hardest hearts break. Comfort never hurts.”